


Cold Hands, Warm Heart

by tony_sassypants_stark



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Minho is a cat, Newt is Jack Frost, Sick Newt, Sorry Not Sorry, Thomas is Jamie all grown up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 01:18:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10451772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tony_sassypants_stark/pseuds/tony_sassypants_stark
Summary: Thomas is eight years old the first time he meets Newt, wide-eyed and amazed by the fact there was a boy perched outside his bedroom window personifying all that winter meant.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this was sitting in my dusty old fanfic wip folder for like a year. I finally got around to writing more of it when I tried to post the second part of my update for Space (which apparently just re-posted the first part and lost all of the second) so this lil thing is here to sooth my anger at AO3 hahaha

Thomas is eight years old the first time he sees him; there's a gust of ice-cold wind, a flash of blue and silvery-white and then he's staring into a pair of the lightest blue eyes he's ever seen. The boy is older than he is, by a long shot, and looks lanky in his big sweatshirt and tightly fit pants. He smiles from his perch on the big tree outside Thomas' bedroom window and then just as quickly as he arrived, he's gone.

Thomas tells his mother the next morning, bright eyed and ecstatic to inform her of his newest friend. She smiles, nods her head what comes out of her mouth makes his heart sink. She says it's perfectly healthy to have imaginary friends. His father nods as well, not bothering to lift his eyes or concentration from the morning paper, and grumbles out a half-asleep agreement. The boy with the white hair was no imaginary friend, he was as real as Thomas. He had the whitest smile and the prettiest eyes Thomas had ever seen, and the frost he'd come swooping in with was still there, still cold on his fingertips when he ran them along his windowsill.

The boy makes his second visit when Thomas is ten and spending Christmas at his grandparents with the rest of his family. It's cold and snowy and everything looks like he'd just stepped into a snow globe. It's beautiful and frigid and fun, inducing snowball fights and snow forts, sledding and hot cocoa to keep warm. His aunts and uncles are bundled in scarves and big puffy jackets, playing in the snow like children with rosy cheeks and big smiles- and throughout it all, he is the only one sharing a grin with the boy lounged out on the snowbank by the driveway. His eyes are crinkled at the edges with pure contentment, teeth on wide open display in a happy beaming smile.

He knocks on the window that night, looking curious and confused at Thomas as he flings open the bay windows and reaches out to pull him in by the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He's smiling so hard his cheeks start to hurt, talking in hushed whispers so he doesn't wake up the adults- "I knew you were real, my mom said you were imaginary but I can feel you!"

He doesn't understand why the boy starts crying, burying his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. He looks to be in grief, the deepest Thomas has ever seen in his ten years of life, but then he moves his hands and a smile, softer than his mom's when she tells him she loves him to the moon and back, peeks through. "Yeah kid, I'm real alright. My names Newt." He has a funny twang to his voice that makes Thomas laugh and scrunch his nose at the unfamiliar feeling of butterflies fluttering in his tummy. It sounds like sunshine and warm summer nights he spends in the fields with his friends, catching fireflies.  
They stay up well into the night, watching snow flurry to the ground as they talk about school and what Thomas wants for Christmas.

Thomas wakes up the next morning with no trace of Newt having been there, setting his mouth into a frown until his cousin comes tottering into the room with a handful of candy and a stocking stuffed to the brim with his name on it in glittery letters.

It's not for another eight years. He goes through life, going to school and playing in the snow until he's old enough to want to spend his time inside where it's toasty and warm, a movie playing on the television with freshly baked cookies on the coffee table. He remembers the boy with white hair and ice blue eyes, remembers how happy they had made each other with smiles and talk of nonsensical school hardships. He envies his younger self, he muses absently, that child had no worries. A heart as light as the flurries of snow Newt had conjured up with a sparkle in his eye that spoke of nothing but happiness.  
Now he has the heart of a young adult, complete with responsibilities and worries and the stresses of daily life. Even sat on the couch, watching some mindless television show, his attention is back on the college acceptance letter lying innocently on his mother's kitchen table. His heart is light with the knowledge that he had been accepted to the college of his choice but his emotions are so heavy he feels like his feet are leaden with the stress and anxiety of having to go off into the big bad world on his own in little more than three months. He's not ready, not prepared to be alone in his endeavor with life as a fully functioning member of society and although he knows it's irrational he feels like he would rather hole himself up in his parent's home and stay where it's safe and routine. He entertains the thought for a grand total of five seconds before he's met with an unwelcome mental image of himself at the age of forty-three, single and jobless with a bedroom in the basement full to the brim with his childhood trinkets and toys. It makes him sputter out a disgruntled noise from the back of his throat.  
God he hoped he would never be that one creepy guy who still lived with his parents and played video games religiously-

There's a dull tapping, somewhere towards the hallway leading to his bedroom, and while it's just loud enough to obtain his attention off his thoughts he doesn't have the interest enough to actively get up and see what is causing it. Knowing him, it was the damned cat his mother insisted on saving a few years back- all black with piercing green eyes that made Thomas feel uncomfortably judged every time they fell upon him. "Stop it you damn furball." Is all he can muster up, knowing full well that he had a soft spot for said fur ball when he would wake up in the morning with a curled up black mass on his chest, sleeping soundly with a soft purr looking for all intent and purpose like the picture of contentment.

When the tapping becomes much more incessant, almost to the point of knocking, Thomas has to force himself to get up with a grunt and roll that lands him on the floor in a tangled heap of blanket and limbs. It takes a few tries to get his feet free and padding out of the living room, cold against the wooden flooring his father was so fond of, but finds himself coming to a sudden, abrupt halt as he turns the corner.

There, curled into a miserable ball of shivering boy, is Newt. He's soaked through to the bone with what looks like melted snow and ice, white hair dripping water onto the floor in tiny puddles- his skin is ghostly white, nothing like the crisp clean white that reminded him of freshly fallen snow. He's curled so tightly into himself that his knuckles are stark white against the wood, clutching tightly to his sweatshirt-clad arms where he's shivering so hard Thomas can swear he hears teeth clicking together. He looks so small, so fragile and breakable. So unlike the force to be reckoned with, the ball of energy and spirit and happiness that he had been the last time Thomas had spent with him all those years ago.

Approaching him gives Thomas the sense of approaching an injured wild animal, like the boy would suddenly get up and bolt before he could explain that he was there to help not to harm. But as he gets close enough to gently kneel at Newt's side, he isn't met with a pair of wild, pained eyes. Instead he is met with a dull gray, blank stare that makes his stomach drop into the heels of his feet. Those eyes were dead, so tired and full of surrender that it scared him, shook him to his very core. Those eyes were never supposed to look this way, meant only for joy and the sharing of what he had interpreted as a child to be the spirit of all good things coming with winter.

"Newt...?" A gentle, careful hand on his shoulder brings sudden recognition to those eyes, a wobbly smile to familiar lips. "You remember me, Tommy..." It brings no strength to that voice though, only manages to make it sound weak and just as tired as the rest of him looks.

Thomas, for the first time, feels the physical splintering of his heart breaking in his chest. He knew the pain of a broken relationship, knew the pain of losing one you love, knew the pain of being a failure in someone else's eyes. But never had he experienced the heartbreak of seeing something once so beautiful and alive and full of such spirit, looking so broken and weak. Newt had, at one time, been a source of strength for him. With a small smile and brushing of limp, cold hair behind an ear, Thomas comes to the decision that would inevitably change the course of the lives of everyone around him.

**Author's Note:**

> look at that cliffhanger i am so sorry i dont usually like to end a chapter on this kind of note lmao anywho i hope you guys enjoyed this little prologue of sorts. no idea when the next chapter will be up but it will be updated.


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